


One Heart, One Flesh, One Soul

by RonnieWriting



Series: A Tide of Ice and Blood (spinoffs/ prequels/whatever) [2]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, and before any of kristoff's siblings were born, and to develop some bulda/ bjarg background motives, and whatnot, basically i wrote this so I could work out what happened at a northern wedding, set well before the events of atoiab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26848954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonnieWriting/pseuds/RonnieWriting
Summary: set when Bulda and Bjarg (cliff) got married- before any of kristoff's siblings were born.I really wrote this to establish some more northern customs and develop both characters for the story (i'm meant to be writing)- but I ended up liking so much I wanted to share it!
Relationships: bulda/cliff - Relationship
Series: A Tide of Ice and Blood (spinoffs/ prequels/whatever) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877479





	One Heart, One Flesh, One Soul

With no one left to lead her, Bulda approached the clearing before the great Heart Waters with only the Gods on her arm.

She was dressed in little more than her shift and a crown made of flowers and sweet herbs- a naked bride without a maiden cloak across her shoulders. There had been no one left to pass her one or make one new and that surely was no good omen. 

Bulda was not told the way- per tradition- but in the light of a promising sign, she soon found where her groom waited. Bjarg looked like a vision in the mist, his long hair unbound, dressed in a plain tunic and trousers. And tucked over an arm she so longed to be around her in that moment, was the cloak he was about to offer her. 

_ Bjarg was the exception to ‘no one’. _

But, before she could join his side, there was still a length of trial that she needed to pass. The trail was lain stark against the fallen snow- black stones carried all the way from Deadgott Bay and steaming with strange warmth. Though a good distance from her, Bulda swore she could hear Bjarg's breath catch in his throat at what was to come.

The Elder Gotthi from Admidsnow, Yelena, joined her side. Her bright grey eyes bore through Bulda’s very skin but for once she could not shy away from them. Yelena, hair braided immaculately and covered in ash black furs, brought a shallow wooden bowl between them. It was Bulda’s duty to fill it.

Taking the antler blade from Yelena’s shriveled hand, Bulda placed it against the flesh of her left hand and on an exhale, sliced open her palm. Yelena held the bowl below to catch the blood as it spilled in waves with each throb that shook through her. And once the flow had waned, Yelena replaced the blade with a wand of sage, lighting it as it passed. 

Maiden had met Crone over the fire of motherhood.

The fresh wound on her hand was meant to distract from the shock of the scalding stones beneath her feet- but truthfully it only added to her pain. The trail was the length of nine laying men, and should she faint or leave it too soon, she would be deeming herself a woman unfit. 

The burning sage abused her senses and corrupted each attempt she made at drawing a steady breath. And yet, she persisted. She dared not focus on his figure but his words in her mind were clearer than anything else. 

_ “My love, burning sun in my sky, no one can match your strength.”  _   
Her pain must’ve been a thorn’s prick against that of which he endured. Already a man declared grown and worthy, Bjarg’s trial was one of combat. Traditionally, his opponent would be a man from Bulda’s family- her father or a brother- and one that only ended with a yield or a death. But since she had none, the honor went to the champion that the Gods chose.

She’d be answered soon enough with a yielded sword or a severed head, as she was forbidden from witnessing his trial- but the blood stained on his tunic told her enough of what she could expect.

  
  


The instant her feet touched ice they all but sobbed. Bulda could have collapsed then and there but her heart was too full, it had replaced all the screams for relief in her mind with cries for love that stung too alike her wounds. The ceremony had only begun.

Bjarg consumed her senses, coming near her with the cloak draped between his hands. It was nothing grand- a humble woven grey wool with contrasted stitching depicting two rearing stags, his name’s sigil- but it still managed to steal what was left of her breath. He could not offer her his arm- not yet- for it would negate her display of strength but she knew it twitched with such desire. Instead, he wrapped his cloak around her shoulders, and used the second of proximity to sneak a chaste, hedonistic kiss against her temple. 

If Yelena saw it as a dark omen, she did not make it known. Taking the smouldering sage from Bulda’s grasp, she addressed them, “Children of The Mountain. You come before Gods and men this day to bind yourselves together in flesh and spirit.” Only then did the nine other folk around them fade into her consciousness- witnesses. “Declare yourselves.” Yelena demanded.

Beside her, Bjarg drew a breath. Lying before the Gods was a great sin. “Bjarg, son of Oskaar.”

It was Bulda’s turn then. “Bulda, daughter of Arrvid.”

Yelena thrust the sage away to be passed through the hands of the nine witnesses. Then the bowl of blood came to the point of focus again. Bulda raised her arms to lift the flower crown from her head as Yelena continued to speak, “May our Father shower you with his favour in judgement.” Bjarg stooped to one knee at Bulda’s feet. “May our Mother bless you with the warmth of passion.” She placed the crown in the bowl, soaking the flowers a deep red. “May The Son grant you the gift of many sons.” Then, she took the crown from the bowl, trickling with oversaturated blood, and held it above Bjarg’s bowed head. “And may The Ghost only send you the coldness of death when it is truly time.” With the final words the bloody flowers were sat upon his head. 

He rose to meet her eyes again, strings of blood tracing the valleys of his face like streaks of red lightning in the sky, with a brilliant smile worth falling in love with all over again. 

“Children of The Mountain.” Yelena asked for each of their hands. Bulda’s right and Bjarg’s left. “Hear the vows the Gods bid you take and swear them under no obligation other than  _ trumun _ .”

When they had nodded, Yelena cut the hands open before her. 

Now, with no hesitation- or old words to tell him ‘no’- Bjarg grasped Bulda’s hand in his own. They bled together,  _ into  _ each other. Bulda’s maidens’ blood crusted on her other hand, it's milk still making its way down Bjarg’s face where it fell over his lips and collected at his chin. She was alive with pain and love all at once; and had no doubt that the man she would soon call her husband was feeling the same.

“The Gods charge you with mutual honor and respect. To share in love and pain. To be a unity of warmth in the blights of winter. To hold to one another in the eyes of the Gods and let only Them be the ones to finally part you.”

They spoke together in harmonious synchronisation, “Such is what I swear to and should I break my vows, may justice find me.”

The words were old and seemed inadequate at voicing such young love but within them was unmistakable power- a promise unlittered by lustful folly and pretty words. 

Once the marriage cord had been tied round their joined hands and the Gotthi had pronounced them finally as husband and wife, Bjarg’s restraint was a lost concept.

His hands came around her waist and he pulled her against his chest. Their lips collided with burning fervor and in that moment, it was like all that troubled the world had simmered down into a murmur. Bulda tucked her abused hands against Bjarg’s firm chest and she heaved a sigh into him. The smell of blood was all around her now- her own, his, his opponent’s- and yet it could not sour the air.

Bjarg pulled away first but only to scoop her into his arms and carry her away from the edge of the Heart Waters and back towards the village of Admidsnow.

“To Bjarg and Bulda!” Luras called over the cheerful buzz in the hall. They all answered him with a collective  _ ‘skål! _ ’ and a sea of drinking vessels rose around them.

Bjarg let her down from his arms once they had crossed the threshold, though he kept a steadying hand flat against the dip of her back. 

The torment in her feet refused to let up- if anything, it was only beginning to hurt more- but she walked the length of rugged floor to the head table with her head held as high as she could manage. The pride that radiated off of Bjarg grew more palpable with each step.

Bjarg didn’t join her immediately at the table, however. Once he had led her to her seat, watching her climb the raised platform with unrestrained awe displayed across his features, he turned back to the center of the hall and the focus of a hundred eyes.

His heart beat against his chest like the drums of war, ready to make  _ his own _ gesture of blood to his love. 

Luras, one of his closest friends, called in his trophy. The room was humming with anticipation which exploded into cheers when he pulled his prize from the bag in which it was hidden from view- the severed head of a great winter bear. 

Everyone in that room had witnessed him battle that monster of a bear. He had earned scars that may never leave him. Thank all the Gods they had not seen fit to send him a  _ bigger _ creature, or he may not have seen his beloved Bulda again.

When he turned, to present the head to his new wife, she  _ beamed _ . 

Everyone in the hall got to taste the bear that night- a luxury that would be barbarically outdated had he slain a relative for her hand- and Bjarg was further honored to taste it on his wife’s lips. 

Though, as the night went on and the festivities carried on around them, Bjarg noticed the distance growing in Bulda’s eyes. 

Under the cover of the loud music and the dancers songs, he leaned close to her shoulder- looking to all others like a sweet gesture- and whispered low into her ear, “Is the music too loud for you,  _ wife _ ?”

She leaned into him easily, a beautiful smile cracking at the endearing term, “No, it's wonderful.” 

“Then what troubles you? Besides your poor feet.”

Bulda laughed softly, raising her freshly wrapped hands before him.

He took them both, kissing each of her knuckles with equal care. “There is something more- something that cannot be seen.” and when she frowned slightly, he nudged his nose into her temple, “You cannot hide your feelings from me, love.”

Bulda sighed. Asking wordlessly for his own wrapped hand, which he gave to her immediately. She traced the lines there with her fingertips, feather-light across the raised wound under the thin cloth. “If we could, my Bjarg- I’d rather share that with you tonight, where we can be alone.”

Who was he to refuse his new wife? “Of course, my burning sun.” 

  
  


Tomorrow was when their week of newly wed duties would begin- all of them tasks he was itching to complete with her- but for now, all that was expected of them was to simply hold each other.

And they did. Bjarg had been tucked himself against the curves of his wife’s body since the moment they had both come back to earth as the ricochettes of their passion eased into a fine rumble. 

They lay stark naked, tangled together, in the marriage bed that occupied the back room of the great hall- its purpose as old as man, but the history that this room held alone was enough to make him choke.

Only when she neglected to mask a sniff did he look up from the cushion of her breast and notice the tears streaming from her eyes. “My Bulda... you’re crying.”

“Forgive me, love.” she told him with heavy breath, “I’m not upset, just- morose.”

He raised himself up on his elbows, pulling himself up the bed so that he was leaning over Bulda’s face. His hair, with braids ceremoniously woven by his wife, curtained around his face- blocking her eyes from the rest of the world. This was how their dance of love and lust had begun and he saw the reverberation of dark thoughts flutter behind her eyes.

Bjarg did what he could to sound soft and sincere, but it still came out deep and rough, “You are troubled, share your woes with me. _ Please _ .”

She smiled up at him, every muscle in her face relaxing. One of her hands came up between them to stroke at the rigid slope of his nose. At her angle below him, every jut and valley of his face looked like the wave-carved face of a cliff. A cliff she had no fear of falling off- he’d  _ always  _ catch her. Bulda sighed in relent, “How is it that my heart can be so sick with love and pain in one moment?”

“That, sweet wife, is a question for the singers. I hope that I am the better half of your heart’s fill...” The nose she had been admiring with her fingers had now lowered to her neck. Once he had understood that her pain wasn’t so deep as to be out of his reach, he was all languid passion in her hands again.

“You are,  _ husband _ .” Bulda gripped the fine hair at the nape of his neck when he latched onto her skin with his lips. The title excited him, filled him to the brim with a primal desire. And  _ oh, how she wished to forget the thoughts in her mind and surrender herself entirely to him... again _ \- but her sensibility boiled up to the surface, breaking the bubble of her thirst for him. “The other weight is for my father.”

Bjarg’s entire body seized, frozen against her. Only then did she realise that he had been moving against her- now as still as the great mountains that towered in the distance. Every length of his body was tense at the mention of that man. Bjarg’s hands turned to white-knuckled fists in the linen sheets, his entire upper body was one tight line drawn across her vision; even his manhood, that had been hardening amidst the wave of fresh arousal they had both been under, was unmoving where it pressed against the flesh of her inner thigh.

In one moment, with one word, all his adrenaline had turned from a hungry fury into absolute animosity. But she had sworn not to hold her pain from him. The cliff’s edge was rushing to meet her.

Soothing him so soon after she had disturbed his waters was frivolous, but she hoped her voice could somewhat bring him back to her. “If it could have been so- do you think--...  _ would _ you have killed him today?”

Bjarg let out his breath against her neck. It made every hair on her skin stand tall. If she had known him less, Bulda might have thought that he was thinking of an answer.  _ No _ \- if there was one thing Bjarg was concrete on, it was what he thought of her father.

If his voice had been rough before, it was sharp now as he answered her honestly, “If it could have been- I could think of nothing more honorable than ending the man who has caused you so much pain to earn your hand.”

_ ‘Ending’ _ was a poetic way of putting it. The fantasies he hosted for killing her father were violent and horrific. The things he wished he could do to a man now dead were not for the Gods eyes nor would it have been for their praise. Perhaps in that respect, it was for the best that the man had burned within the walls of his home. He was ash before Bjarg could get to him and defile his morals. 

It would have been a wedding remembered for generations- but not for the reasons one may hope.

“But... it would have turned our wedding sour and cursed the feast.” Bjarg settled. The anger in him was beginning to disintegrate with each strong pulse that pumped through his wife’s neck. She was safe now- and all he could hope to do in his life was be her rock.

Bulda felt similarly. Bjarg was a cliff indeed but though he refused the painful reality of it- he was unstable; fountaitions weak and waiting bated for the day one wave will finally send him toppling into the sea. Nevertheless, she would have walked back over those burning stones again and again just for him.

**Author's Note:**

> so fairly short and ambiguous as far as explaining what happened in the background- but that's partially bc I don't want to give too much away and because i haven't made up my mind on some of the details yet :)  
> thanks for reading xx


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